Old Summer Palace
Inside the Zhengda Guangming Hall
Since the Manchu and Qing Dynasties signed a peace agreement with the bandit suppressing army, the bad news coming from the front lines of the Qing army has suddenly become less and less. In the past few days, there has even been no bad news, only good news about the recovery of various places. Therefore, Qianlong, who felt a lot of pressure, moved the "Yumen Listening to Government" that had been in Qianqing Gate of Taihe Hall in Bauhinia City back here.
"Go to court..."
"If you have something to do, go to court, if nothing happens, leave the court..."
Under the shouts of the eunuchs, Qianlong, who was sitting on the dragon chair at this time, was in a good mood and asked the court ministers at all levels standing below: "My dear friends, who has the memorial today?"
The ministers in the court looked at each other in silence, as if they didn't want to be the first to speak out. After a moment of silence, the atmosphere seemed a little awkward. Suddenly, a loud voice from the queue broke the tranquility of the hall.
"My lord, Minister Jiang Yongchang of the Ministry of Industry has something to report. The Yellow River is seriously flooded today, and Henan has been affected by large areas in previous years..."
With Jiang Yongchang, the minister of the Ministry of Industry, speaking slowly, today's court meeting officially kicked off.
After Jiang Yongchang reported the matter to the emperor, Qianlong immediately understood that he only wanted money to repair the Yellow River channel.
"The waters of the Yellow River have not been in danger for thousands of years, so it is not bad at that time. This year, the imperial court has sent Liu Tongxun to Henan to manage it. I believe that it should not be difficult to deal with it with Liu Tongxun's ability."
"Nowadays, the imperial court is in troubled times. There are endless wars everywhere, and the imperial court needs to spend a lot of money to pacify it. The imperial court's money is not easy to come by. Now one point is spent as two points, so let's put aside the issue of repairing the Yellow River channel this year. ! Just tell them to go down and ask the flood soldiers below to step up their inspections." Qianlong didn't have many excuses and directly rejected Jiang Yongchang's request.
If the Manchu Qing's important tax land in the south had not been lost, Qianlong might not have cared about the little money spent on repairing the Yellow River. But now that all the important tax-paying areas in the south were firmly occupied by the bandit-suppressing army, the Qing court's tax revenue suddenly dropped by nearly half.
Many places in the Qing territory were also in turmoil. Even if the Qing court could quickly calm down, in the next one year or even two to three years, the Manchu Qing court's tax revenue would be reduced significantly from the original basis.
In this way, the current huge expenditure of the imperial court can only rely on the existing deposits of the national treasury to support it.
You must know that the majority of the Manchu and Qing court's annual tax expenditures were "crop money" distributed to banner people.
If the imperial court does not have a large amount of tax support and can only rely on the treasury to support the bannermen, then the imperial treasury is expected to bottom out soon. Once the national treasury is depleted and there is no money to pay the bannermen, and those bannermen start to rebel against the traitors, then the Qing Dynasty is really going to fall.
Therefore, for those "insignificant" matters, Qianlong naturally tried not to deal with them as much as possible, in order to save whatever he could for the national treasury.
"Yes..." Jiang Yongchang did not dare to refute anything and retreated wisely.
"Who still has the notes?" Qianlong felt a little unhappy after being teased by Jiang Yongchang.
The ministers below fell silent again.
"My lord, Qin Tianjian, I have something to report." At this time, a man stood at the end of the team and knelt down and kowtowed.
"Qin Tianjian?" Qianlong was slightly stunned.
Qin Tian Jian, in Qianlong's mind, was just a matter of checking the time and calculating the farming season. Qian Long really couldn't figure out what else Qin Tian Jian could do to report.
"Come forward and talk."
"I accept the decree and thank you, Your Majesty." After He Zhongshi finished speaking, he quickly stepped forward and knelt on the ground again.
"What is being played?" Qianlong asked.
"In recent days, I have been observing the stars at night and found that the Emperor Ziwei star has changed from its previous obscurity and shone brightly. This will mean that our Qing court will soon wipe out the rebels everywhere, and the world will be peaceful and the country and the people will be safe." He After bowing in the Chinese style, he replied energetically.
"Okay, haha... He Aiqing is right." When He Zhongshi said this, Qianlong stood up from the dragon throne in excitement and laughed.
"I received military information from Fu Sen last night. They defeated Pengyang in Gansu in one fell swoop, and now their troops are directed towards Guyuan. I think it will be just around the corner to put down the rebels in Gansu."
"I congratulate the Emperor and the Qing Dynasty. Our Qing Dynasty will be forever solid, long live long live, long live long live..." As soon as Qianlong finished speaking, the ministers in the court immediately knelt down and shouted.
"Everyone, I love you."
"Thank you, Your Majesty."
"He Aiqing, you are not bad. Let me reward He Aiqing with one hundred taels of silver, ten pieces of yarn, and ten pieces of silk." Qianlong said happily.
"I thank you, Your Majesty, long live my emperor..." He Zhongshi knelt down and kowtowed excitedly.
Qintian Prison has always been a Qingshui Yamen, and there is no way to get outside water. And even if He Zhongshi is a fifth-grade Han Jianzheng, his annual salary is only eighty taels. Now Qianlong rewarded him one hundred taels of silver at once, which was more than his annual salary. How could he not be happy? Not to mention those gauze and silk?
"Okay, you can go back!" Qianlong waved his hand and asked He Zhongshi to go back.
"My dear friends, does anyone have anything to report?"
"My lord, the Minister of War, Shu Mulu Shu Hede, has something to report." The Minister of War, Shu Mulu Shu Hede, who was in front, came out and said.
"Shuhed, what's the matter with you?" Qianlong asked.
"Back to the emperor, the latest news came from the Ministry of War. The short-haired rebels in the south established a puppet country on the tenth day of August, and the country's name was Yi." Shumulu Shuhede saluted and replied.
"Haha, the way to rebel against a traitor is to die, and heaven and earth will not tolerate it. The five virtues are always there, and it is destiny for me to be Qing Dynasty." Qianlong, who had just sat down on the dragon throne, stood up again and said with a smile.
Regarding the Five Virtues theory, Qianlong did not believe it from the bottom of his heart. However, Qianlong didn't mind using this to suppress the powerful bandit-suppressing army during this period, and at the same time, he could "rectify" the fate of the Qing Dynasty like the people of the world.
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Note ①: The theory of the beginning and end of the Five Virtues is the historical view of Zou Yan, a Yin-Yang master during the Warring States Period in China. "Five Virtues" refers to the five virtues or properties of earth, wood, metal, fire and water. "Five Virtues Beginning" refers to the cyclical movement of these five qualities from beginning to end and over again. Zou Yan used this as the basis for historical changes and dynasty changes.
As a theoretical tool for changing dynasties, the theory of the Five Virtues is believed by the founders of new dynasties in the past dynasties. After Qin Shihuang unified the six kingdoms, based on Zou Yan's conclusion that "the virtue of water has traveled from Zhou to Zhou", Duke Wen of Qin went out to hunt the black dragon as a sign of the rise of virtue of water. He carried out a series of reforms that met the requirements of virtue of water to prove the legitimacy of his regime. Xing became the first practitioner of the theory of the beginning and end of the Five Virtues.
The theory of the beginning and end of the Five Virtues has always been the basic theoretical framework for successive dynasties to explain the legitimacy of their regimes. "Therefore, since the Qin Dynasty, the Five Victories have been named after the virtues of water. Since the Han Dynasty, no country has ever existed without this saying." However, after the Song and Jin Dynasties, the Five Movement Theory, which had been followed for more than a thousand years, was eventually expelled from the mainstream of Confucian political culture and tended to die out.
After Kublai Khan, the founder of the Yuan Dynasty, came to the throne, Wang Yun, who was then the editor of the Hanlin Academy, formally submitted the "Report on Determining the Destiny of Virtue and Destiny", suggesting that the destinies of the dynasty should be determined, but did not receive any response.
At the beginning of the Yuan Dynasty, there was a situation where "Hong You, a southerner who was studying in the imperial examination, made false claims about the Five Lucks and was whipped and sent away." Not only did he not get a response this time, he also received a beating.
At the end of the Yuan Dynasty, there were many people who suggested that moral destiny should be determined, but the Yuan court did not discuss this issue, which was the theory that the Yuan court could not determine moral destiny.
Note ②: In the thirty-eighth year of Qianlong's reign, Qianlong said it more clearly in the preface of the poem "Illustrated Description of the Destiny of the Great Jin Dynasty":
It is nonsense to talk about the luck of the Five Virtues. Since Han Confucianism began to talk about the Five Virtues, each of the three emperors and the five emperors had their own merits, and later it became a prophecy, which is very frustrating and confusing. The prosperity of a generation is all due to the accumulation of virtue and benevolence, how can it be caused by the failure of the five elements? As for obeying the emperor's command, one should take Huang as the righteous one and others as inappropriate.
The system of Yuan and Ming Dynasty respected Huang and did not show the king of five virtues. His righteousness was very upright. Because of this, this dynasty completely shattered the crude theories of the Han and Wei dynasties.
For more information, please go to Baidu. "Hong Taiji changed the country's name to "Qing Dynasty". Did he really want to use water virtue to overcome the fire virtue of the Ming Dynasty? 》
